


177. starlight

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [191]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 09:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9228341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: She jerks her head to the side, a wordlesslet’sgo, and starts trudging into the woods. Sarah listens to the rhythmic sound of Helena’s backpack banging on her back. She stares outside of the woods. She sighs silver. She follows.





	

By the time they arrive at Beavertail National Park, the sun has set. Outside the cold is like a personal attack, a knifeblade sliding up Sarah’s sleeves and rubbing along the skin of her neck. Helena is standing outside of Alison’s minivan, apparently unaffected, chatting with Donnie about – hunting, or something. Sarah isn’t paying much attention. Her breath plumes silver in front of her every time she sighs.

She slings her backpack over her shoulder and steps towards the edge of the woods, staring into the trees. Shit, it’s dark in there. The moonlight makes the snow glow luminous but it doesn’t make the forest look any less like something from all the old fairy tales. The ones where girls wander in and get lost, or devoured.

Helena’s shoulder bumps into Sarah’s and Sarah jumps. “Shit,” she says, “don’t do that.”

“Sorries,” Helena says. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

The minivans pulls off, spraying snow. Helena waves to it enthusiastically until it goes, at which point her hand drops abruptly. She jerks her head to the side, a wordless _let’s go_ , and starts trudging into the woods. Sarah listens to the rhythmic sound of Helena’s backpack banging on her back. She stares outside of the woods. She sighs silver. She follows.

Helena is wearing full-on boots that are – judging from their shared shoe size – probably too big for her. The nice thing about this is that it leaves over-large footsteps for Sarah to follow in. She clutches the straps of her own backpack as they go deeper, deeper, deeper, heading wordlessly into some fairy tale Sarah doesn’t know the ending to yet.

“Thanks for – this,” Sarah says, the words awkwardly loud in the snow-silence.

Helena looks over her shoulder; she doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Many welcomes,” she says, and then turns back around.

“Sorry I’m the last one.” Sarah doesn’t really mean to say that, not out loud, but the silence is deafening and Helena has turned back so Sarah can’t see her face. And she is. Sorry. Guilt has been gnawing at her ever since Alison came back from the woods.

“It’s okay,” Helena says, voice empty of intonation. Sarah really wishes she could see her face. She also wishes Helena would say something else: _Cosima was terrible to have_ , or _this whole time I was just waiting for you_. Helena doesn’t say either of those things. Everything is too white, too untouched, too silent. All that damn snow. Sarah wants to roll around in it, just to ruin it.

“Great,” she says, awkwardly. “Can’t wait for deer stew.”

“Oh,” Helena says. “No more left. But there are rabbits. Not all the rabbits are gone yet.”

“Yet?”

“It’s winter, Sarah,” Helena says. “They all go under the ground.”

“Oh.”

Sarah shoves her hands in her pockets. She should go home, call Donnie back here, make the whole silent car ride staring out the window at the snow. It’s already getting all over her boots, the snow, she should go home.

“Sarah?” Helena says.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” Helena stops, turns around and actually looks at her. “For coming. I wanted you to see it.”

“Of course,” Sarah says, startled to honesty. “I wanted to come.”

A smile makes its awkward way across Helena’s face – whenever Sarah sees Helena smiling she always thinks of baskets of unfolded laundry, shirts pulled out that are more wrinkles than fabric. The curve of Helena’s mouth all wrinkles. Sarah loves her. It’s strange to remember that, sometimes, that she does.

“Come on,” Helena says. “I can make tea now, there is tea.”

“Thanks,” Sarah says. The word is warm in her mouth. They keep walking home through the snow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
